Buy-to-let returns reach 9.6% in March

Returns were especially high in London at 16.5% with the help of a 13.57% capital return.

Buy-to-let returns stood at 9.6% in the year to March 2016 in terms of income and capital gains, Property Partner's Residential Market Index has found.

Returns were especially high in London at 16.5% with the help of a 13.57% capital return.

However they were more fragile in Yorkshire and Humberside (4.51%) and the North East (2.57%) where capital returns stood at 0.87% and -1.38%.

In the three months to March – a month in which investors rushed to market to beat the stamp duty deadline – buy-to-let portfolios saw a 2.3% return.

Rob Weaver, Property Partner’s director of investment said: “Investors are understandably showing caution ahead of the EU referendum.

“But the fundamentals - high employment, wage growth, cheap borrowing and the chronic shortage of supply - remain in place and are positive.”